Change the spelling of Theristicus
caerulescens to Theristicus coerulescens and that of Cyanocorax
caeruleus to Cyanocorax coeruleus

Background: Current notes read:

8a. David & Dickinson (2016) presented evidence that
the original spelling of the species name is coerulescens. SACC proposal needed.

6a. David & Dickinson (2016) presented evidence that
the original spelling of the species name is coeruleus. SACC proposal needed.

Careful
examination of high-scanned images of new names introduced by Vieillot in Nouveau dictionnaire des sciences naturelles
(I‐XXXVI
(1816‐1819))
have shown that the original caerulescens
and caeruleus were misread, and that
Vieillot cannot be held responsible of these incorrect original spellings. As
of a result, not emphasized by David and Dickinson (2016), original epithets
starting with caerul- and coerul- are all correct original
spellings.

New
information: A recent contribution by David et al. (2016: 15-25) clarifies the
situation:

Theristicus caerulescens and Cyanocorax caeruleus should
now read, respectively,Theristicus coerulescens and Cyanocorax coeruleus.

Comments
from Claramunt: “NO. David & Dickinson (2016) revealed
a very interesting story regarding problems with the use of ligatures in
Vieillot’s “Nouveau Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles.” The two ligatures
were so similar that apparently even the typesetters could not distinguish them
and used one or the other indiscriminately! For the same reason, later authors
used spellings that sometimes do not match the spelling in the Dictionnaire,
and we use today several of these “incorrect” spellings. David & Dickinson
(2016) suggested that we should revert to the original spelling.

“Stability is a crucial goal
in nomenclature and any proposal that affects stability should be examined
meticulously. First note that the Principle of Priority does apply to the
alternative spellings of an available name (Art. 23.5), however, “when an
incorrect subsequent spelling is in prevailing usage and is attributed to the
publication of the original spelling, the subsequent spelling and attribution
are to be preserved and the spelling is deemed to be a correct original
spelling.” (Article 33.3.1)

“Also note that these
alternative spellings should not be considered homonyms (Art. 54.3, contra
David & Dickinson 2016, p.20), they are just alternative spellings;
therefore, rules that apply specifically to synonyms and homonyms are
irrelevant in this case.

“Therefore,
if I interpret The Code correctly, stability trumps priority in this case.
Because both Theristicus caerulescens and Cyanocorax caeruleus
are in prevailing usage, these spellings should be considered correct spellings
and we don’t need to resurrect old spellings from their tombs.”

Comments
from Stiles: “YES. The
changes are minor and will not cause confusion, and are justified by the new
evidence from the original type descriptions.”

Comments
from Areta: “I do not
know. I have been examining these ligatures critically and cannot convince
myself that the differences shown are indeed a product of using different
cassetins or whether the differences have to do mostly with problems during the
printing process. Note for example the very enlightening cases of Novae-hollandiae
(Figure 6) and Ramphocaenus (Figure 8). In the first one, there are
striking differences in how the simple "o" is printed in "Nov"
(open above) and in "holl" (bold, fully closed), casting doubts
on whether the lack of a clear "a" in Novae is due to the use
of a different ligature or an artifact of printing. The second case is
interesting too. First, note the gross printing error in the lower
"R". This is much more obvious than the lack of a little stick
(=slanted upward feature) on an "a" in the "ae" ligature.
Second, in the case above there is something abnormal both above and below the
"a" or "o": the letter is opened below and the curve above
is artificially straight and with a steep slope. Also note that in the case of Passer
italiae there appears to be a minor hint of "little stick". I
would like to hear thoughts from other SACC members on the causes of variation
in Vieillot's names. Perhaps looking into more printed copies (i.e., increasing
the n) can help discriminate true ligature problems from printing artifacts.

“Finally, I
wonder why Geranospiza caerulescens (or coerulescens) is not also
discussed.”

Additional Comments from Stiles: “I
will change my vote here to NO. Such type-setting confusion with ligatures
appears to be have been rife in Vieillot’s time, so I agree with Santiago that
stability definitely trumps second-guessing the typesetters’ intentions.”

Comments from Robbins:
“NO.For stability, this seems to be the
best option to a problematic interpretation.”

Comments
from Jaramillo:
“NO.The inconsistency in what the names
looked like on paper may be due to various reasons. Given that it is not clear
cut exactly what is the cause, I think we should vote for stability.”

Comments
from Zimmer: “NO for reasons of stability as argued by others.”

Comments solicited from
Murray Bruce:
“No. I normally agree with Normand David’s conclusions, but in this case, after
I saw the paper, I counterargued directly with Normand. He ultimately
took the view that either form of the name could be used without altering the
author’s meaning with the name. Although some ‘ae’ and ‘oe’ distinctions
were made in the paper, if such distinctions were the intent of the font
design, then one should expect clearer differences, rather than having to work
with subtle linguistic differentiations combined with slight variations in very
similar looking diphthongs (their figure 1), or possible printer’s errors (also
see below on different common font designs in use today). So one might
conclude with why change the spellings? And here I am inclined to agree,
but only after a little further digging into what is really an unusual and
problematic issue with original names vs. subsequent usages. Some years
back I was involved in a discussion about the original spelling of the name of
an African roller as Coracias naevius vs. C. noevius, in this case for
the HBW volume covering rollers. Access to Daudin 1800 was not then as
easy as it is now. I found that if one accepted ‘oe’, the favoured variant
because it looks like this at the original citation (Traite 2: 258), then one
must accept Daudin citing the Systema Naturoe, if the font designs are
taken at face value. I therefore argued in favour of ‘ae’, because this is
apparently what was intended and was the favoured spelling in all cases
throughout the 19th Century when we know that most namers of birds had a
classical background in Latin.

Also
in the case of Vieillot, it would seem that ‘oe’ is really meaning ‘ae’, based
on the font design used, and interchangeable certainly at least for the
examples under discussion here. However, we know that there are Latin
derived French words such as moeurs, so that ‘oe’ as a linguistically correct
ligature cannot be entirely ruled out, but very poorly served by the font
design used by the typesetters of the dictionary where Vieillot’s articles
appeared (and see below of their reprinting).

“Note
here with Arial we have æ/œ, italicised
as æ/œ;with Times New Roman we have æ/œ, italicised
as æ/œ; with
Bookman
Old Style we have æ/œ, italicised as æ/œ; with
Calibri
we have æ/œ, italicised as æ/œ.
Now what do we
have? The most common font variant in use then as now retains the
distinctive italicised form with the subtle differentiation between the two at
the heart of this debate still present. If I use Times New Roman then all
italicised ligatures resemble ‘oe’ in both cases, but with the subtle
difference that the paper and figure 1 tried to demonstrate, but was there
typesetter consistency in these cases? I have long known of the usage of
an Alcedo coerulescens of Vieillot from the same dictionary source,
which is really interchangeable with ‘ae’, but this variant has been in use for
a long time. It was then all about demonstrating that someone made an
effort to look up Vieillot’s dictionary article and, Voila! I originally
studied these volumes many years ago and was struck by this but after extensive
examination took the view that in all questionable cases it was really about
‘ae’. Note that Vieillot reprinted all of his dictionary articles, with
some minor revision, in his continuation of Bonnaterre’s Encyclop. Method.
of 1790-91, in 1820-23. I checked these volumes for the Cyanocorax
(2: 886) and Theristicus (3: 1147) and found that the ligatures there
are even worse; they appear as stretched, thinner versions of what really looks
like the ‘oe’, but could be construed as ‘ae’. In the ibis article Vieillot
mentioned aethiopicus, looking like oethiopicus. I checked
the original (Latham 1790, Index Orn. 2: 706) and found that the font used
there clearly looks like an ‘ae’ ligature, which of course is appropriate for
what was then Æthiopia.

“As usual in a case such as this, Cat. BM is of no
help (3: 126, 26: 24). In the case of the ibis, in Elliot’s review (PZS
1877: 503) he makes it clear that while using ‘ae’, his citing of the original
name looks like ‘oe’. Again, is it merely all about the font? While
I am yet to investigate the history of font designs, I assume that while both
‘ae’ and ‘oe’ variants can be easily recognised in various font designs of italics,
it would seem that the ae/oe variants, as we have today in Times New Roman,
were more widely used. Lastly, as some of the slight inconsistencies in
the examples provided also could be due to wear and tear of the metal font
plugs or cassetins on the typesetting boards in those days, as well as the
other anomalies noted as present in the appearances of other letters, this only
adds to the problems. I would therefore agree with retaining ‘ae’ for the names
under discussion here, which accords with the general views of all classical
users of the names through the 19th Century. And as Areta pointed out,
what about Geranospiza? This should be included here, or if
treated as a separate proposal, the same arguments apply.”